About

Peter McMahon (a.k.a. “The Wilderness Astronomer”) is an award-winning science journalist who has worked for CTV News (where he currently serves as a TV science commentator), Discovery Channel, written for MSN.ca, The Toronto Star, Frommer’s, and CAA online magazine.

In February of 2010, he covered health science stories at the Vancouver Winter Games for CTVolympics.ca

In 2013, Peter worked for the Canadian Space Agency as “Chris Hadfield’s science experiment biographer” (as he puts it), writing text for the CSA web site. He also wrote scripts for several the “Life in space” videos that Chris filmed in orbit, which have since have garnered millions of views on YouTube (that likely had a little more to do with Chris than Peter.)

Since then, Peter has traveled to, photographed, spoken at, and worked with all 19 of Canada’s dark sky preserves (some of which are pictured above – photos by Peter McMahon, Yuichi Takasaka, Chris Green and Kevin Snair), including the current largest-dark-sky-preserve-in-the-world, Wood Buffalo National Park, in NWT and Alberta. (Peter currently serves as the annual astronomy-writer-in-residence for both Wood Buffalo and Jasper.)

He has spoken on science communication and astronomy at countless universities, science centres, conferences, planetariums, and national parks, as well as delivering science communication workshops at Science North/Laurentian University’s Science Communication program and The Banff Centre.

Peter’s second installment in the Machines of the Future science experiment book series – Space Tourism – published by Kids Can Press, was recently made an official selection of the prestigious U.S. Junior Library Guild. His next book – The Space Adventurer’s Guide – hits bookstores in 2015.